Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Chaoswizkid]

More on the Occupy Nashville protests:

http://www.nashvillescene.com/pitw/archives/2011/10/29/night-court-magistrate-throws-the-book-at-haslam-troopers-over-occupy-nashville-arrests

[Andrew425]

I guess I should clarify that I live in Canada.

And I like the way it is there, I think they need to do change the electoral college in the states, but I don't think they should change fptp

What? Proportional Representation is the best system for Canada. FPTP has done very little good for us recently.

I would argue the exact opposite. It's done wonders for Canada.


I think the states can make their system work they just need to remove the idea of electoral colleges and go for a straight vote. The one with the most votes is elected president.

[Willfor]

I would argue the exact opposite. It's done wonders for Canada.


I think the states can make their system work they just need to remove the idea of electoral colleges and go for a straight vote. The one with the most votes is elected president.

Our current government was elected with 39.62%, and yet holds 100% of the power at the moment. Please elaborate on how that was a "straight vote". More people voted against our current government than voted for it. And don't get me wrong, I have voted Conservative on all but one of my voting opportunities, but even my diehard Conservative father wants PR brought to Canada. FPTP does more harm than good by essentially nullifying 40-70% of votes at times.

[Andrew425]

Because in 160 areas, people chose to pick the conservatives over the others.


It consolidates power and it gets stuff done unlike Europe which is consistently deadlocked.

And Quebec got screwed, which makes me happy.

[Willfor]

Because in 160 areas, people chose to pick the conservatives over the others.


It consolidates power and it gets stuff done unlike Europe which is consistently deadlocked.

And Quebec got screwed, which makes me happy.

No.

In 137ish areas, 40-60% of people chose to pick the Conservatives, and the rest voted against them. 40-60% of people were fucked over entirely. If you call that fair, cool, our definitions are so far apart that we might as well not even further discuss this.

Consolidation of power in Canada is so laughable as to be hilarious. We don't WANT consolidation of power, we want a loose government that can effectively govern wildly disparate areas. Consolidation of power in Canada is possibly the worst thing we could have. It ensures that all of us get screwed over by other places in the country. MOST LIKELY: Ontario and Quebec.

However, it does afford me the opportunity to laugh at whichever part of Canada you're in when Quebec resurges (inevitable), and you see that the hammer swings both ways.

[Andrew425]

Because in 160 areas, people chose to pick the conservatives over the others.


It consolidates power and it gets stuff done unlike Europe which is consistently deadlocked.

And Quebec got screwed, which makes me happy.

No.

In 137ish areas, 40-60% of people chose to pick the Conservatives, and the rest voted against them. 40-60% of people were fucked over entirely. If you call that fair, cool, our definitions are so far apart that we might as well not even further discuss this.

Consolidation of power in Canada is so laughable as to be hilarious. We don't WANT consolidation of power, we want a loose government that can effectively govern wildly disparate areas. Consolidation of power in Canada is possibly the worst thing we could have. It ensures that all of us get screwed over by other places in the country.

However, it does afford me the opportunity to laugh at whichever part of Canada you're in when Quebec resurges (inevitable), and you see that the hammer swings both ways.

When Quebec resurges it will be doing what it always has been doing. Which is screwing over the rest of us. Which is has been since the 50's.

In a majority of places the majority of people voted for a party. That party is now in control, what is wrong with that?

[Willfor]

When Quebec resurges it will be doing what it always has been doing. Which is screwing over the rest of us. Which is has been since the 50's.

In a majority of places the majority of people voted for a party. That party is now in control, what is wrong with that?

Please stop ignoring the key to everything I have been saying: In a majority of places the majority of people have not voted for a party. They have voted against a party. That is it. That is the point. It's not a difficult point to learn and understand. It's even scientific fact, backed up by statistics.

If this point is ignored in your next post, I'm done talking to you.

[alway]

As far as everything related to voting, this pretty much summarizes it: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4281
When it comes to 'giving supermajorities to those who don't deserve it in order to speed up legislation,' that has everything to do with how much pure democracy is your aim (the two are entirely separate issues).

[mainiac]

It consolidates power and it gets stuff done unlike Europe which is consistently deadlocked.

That's not the fault of a parliamentary system, that's the fault of the fact that Europe is a project with very little in the way of authority, goals or clarity of purpose.

As far as everything related to voting, this pretty much summarizes it: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4281
When it comes to 'giving supermajorities to those who don't deserve it in order to speed up legislation,' that has everything to do with how much pure democracy is your aim (the two are entirely separate issues).

Who said anything about giving super majorities to anyone?

[Heron TSG]

During the presidency?  He was running the country from south america? 

So I've heard.  I could be wrong.

well, that fancy canal at panama didn't dig itself!

( Although at the moment I can't find any source to quote about him being there. Not any source that you would consider appropriate at least.)

Spoiler: From the years before 'Shooping (click to show/hide)

[GlyphGryph]

Andrew, you still haven't said a single way in which FTPT is better than, say, Approval Voting. In fact, IRV voting would have the same consolidation of power FPTP has - so what, exactly, is your opposition based on?

[Andrew425]

Andrew, you still haven't said a single way in which FTPT is better than, say, Approval Voting. In fact, IRV voting would have the same consolidation of power FPTP has - so what, exactly, is your opposition based on?

The fact that you get only one vote and can't dilly dally.

One vote per person, that's better.

People don't vote against a party, they vote for a candidate they think is the best. The fact that the winner didn't get the majority of the votes is inconsequential.

we want a loose government that can effectively govern wildly disparate areas.

This is what we have right now, with loose districts. PR would just amalgamate the ridings into one giant area which would make our government even more consolidated.

[Neonivek]

Well one of the larger problems is how to prevent corruption of the system.

Right now it is actually outright impossible given that it is systematically supported.

[mainiac]

One vote per person, that's better.

That is exactly WHY we need proportional representation.  Right now the vote of myself and every other voter in Maryland mattered almost not at all because there wasn't a single competitive national election for the House or Senate last election in the entire state of Maryland.  Somebody who lived in the 10% of districts nationwide that we're actually competitive on the other hand had their votes count to determining the direction of the entire country.  In practical terms, I got 0 votes while some people got 10.

That is not 1 man 1 vote.  1 man 1 vote would be that we all get a vote and all of our votes count equally towards determining the composition of congress.

If your aim is for everybody to be equal then FPTP is literally the worst possible system you could dream up short of actually illegal shit like rotten boroughs.

This is what we have right now, with loose districts. PR would just amalgamate the ridings into one giant area which would make our government even more consolidated.

No. It. Would. Not.  It is very simple to combine a proportional representative situation with all the stuff you love.  You get to keep your local representative.  It's just that some additional seats "at large" are created to accommodate voters who's candidates lost.  This isn't complicated and we already explained it to you.

[Andrew425]

One vote per person, that's better.

That is exactly WHY we need proportional representation.  Right now the vote of myself and every other voter in Maryland mattered almost not at all because there wasn't a single competitive national election for the House or Senate last election in the entire state of Maryland.  Somebody who lived in the 10% of districts nationwide that we're actually competitive on the other hand had their votes count to determining the direction of the entire country.  In practical terms, I got 0 votes while some people got 10.

That is not 1 man 1 vote.  1 man 1 vote would be that we all get a vote and all of our votes count equally towards determining the composition of congress.

If your aim is for everybody to be equal then FPTP is literally the worst possible system you could dream up short of actually illegal shit like rotten boroughs.

This is what we have right now, with loose districts. PR would just amalgamate the ridings into one giant area which would make our government even more consolidated.

No. It. Would. Not.  It is very simple to combine a proportional representative situation with all the stuff you love.  You get to keep your local representative.  It's just that some additional seats "at large" are created to accommodate voters who's candidates lost.  This isn't complicated and we already explained it to you.

You live in a representative democracy and you vote for the person in your riding. Why should your vote influence the decision of someone in Texas or California? Just because your state isn't a swing state doesn't mean your vote doesn't count.

I really don't understand how you think that you can have a PR system and keep your local representative without losing the power of your vote.